What to bring to school...

[redhawk]

What age group??

Richard S.

[Richard-TX]

Grade 7 (12-13)

Forget it. Most 7th graders don't care about stuff like that. I hate to say it but most 7th grade students are morons. Show up with an Ipad loaded with games and they will all go "oooh" and "ahhhh".

[scotty101]

Go with Minecraft and do some coding with it.

Very visual and a good way to introduce that age range to programming in an interesting way.

[Richard-TX]

At least you said 'most' (I am in Grade 7 to)

You are the exception, not the rule. Pursue your passion, always. Passion is what defined DaVinci, Beethoven and other luminaries.

[Ravenous]

I hate to say it but most 7th grade students are morons.

An absolute classic post here on the Education forum!

I'd agree with the games & minecraft-type suggestions. Especially if you can find any games which really show off the Raspi's graphics. (Any suggestions anyone?)

Motors and things are the sort of stuff that get me interested (as I'm a mechanics, electronics and robotics geek) but for "normal" human beings of that age games is probably the safest bet, and more likely to get them interested.

[Ravenous]

I'd suggest doing a demo involving the minimum hardware, to avoid the risk of stuff not working on the day. (Just ask any of the old duffers here if they've ever had to do a demo of something and some connector or piece of wiring has failed on the day .) Another reason for giving a software talk of some sort.

[DougieLawson]

I had that nightmare with a RS6000 Aix / S/390 machine that I took to Scotland in the back of a rental van.
Me and the computer arrived in one piece, but the hard disk array was totally useless. It's not easy presenting a demo of running a mainframe inside a strange host when you can't get the box beyond the red power light stage.

If you're looking at simple hardware then Meccano or Lego are good. There's plenty of threads on here on driving servos.

If James May can do a lap of the Isle of Man TT Circuit on a Meccano motorbike
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe- ... n-23898497
then it's good for most things.

[Tzarls]

If you want to take the challenge...

Get some cheap USB microphone (or some other way to get audio into the Pi). Then search the forum for examples on voice control. If you can get you Pi to respond to some simple commands like "play video" (or "start motor" ) I´m sure that´ll blow their minds.

Then prepare to be treated as a god, or a wizard..... or something worse.

[windy54]

When I have taken my raspberry PI's into school they have been impressed with the vehicle controlled via a Nintendo controller and an amplifier so that it speaks, reversing, etc.

Also a PI fitted with a camera running the adafruit creepy picture application, if you have not seen this it detects your face and turns a skull to follow you.

I am also trying to get Pierre Rausfast magic mirror application running to show them, at the moment it detects a face but I am struggling with the recognition.

They are also keen to see minecraft

[natesmith]

The game controller diffinately gets the kid attention!
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natesmith